Novel Full Chapter 627 - 627 Real Flashbacks Part 4
Lily had mixed feelings about her current form after finishing the second half of Kat's 5th day. The intellectual part of her mind had managed to sneak in the interesting observation about just how many different poses Kat had learned… but in the end it was still rather suppressed. Most of Lily's mind was being used to fill in the gaps Kat's view left them with. Lily had spent a long term watching Kat and knew, with surprising clarity at that, exactly how Kat's body moved. This meant that despite seeing everything from Kat's perspective, which did occasionally have joys of its own, she could easily imagine how it would look from the outside.
That was the other thing about the experience. With Kat's view of things being the dominant interpretation, it felt extremely intimate. Sure the poses were nice, and Lily enjoyed them greatly, but it started to mean more to be able to feel things from Kat's perspective. With the poses being relatively easy for the Succubus, Lily was able to seep into Kat's mind slightly.
She knew she didn't have the full scope, but it provided some more insight. Especially because Mai had taken Enuko's form. Something Kat hadn't noticed was that Enuko was a very good looking woman. She had a regal bearing and a quite poise that gave her a presence. This was magnified for Lily who could properly appreciate that look.
With Kat's perspective being around though, she could feel how Kat saw Enuko. Her appearance was just a sidenote to Kat. It was like saying 'this rock is grey' or 'the sun is out today' to Kat while Enuko WAS pretty, there was nothing else tied into the notion. Lily was shocked to see just how much her sexuality affected her view of everyone.
When Lily looked at Enuko, there was so much more there. There was the undercurrent of attraction she felt with most women, the comparisons she automatically made to Kat, automatically ticking off which boxes Enuko ticked on her list of attractive features and several other things besides. Kat treated her almost the way Lily would treat a painting, and furthermore, Lily got the sense this was basically how Kat saw everyone.
Lily wondered what she looked like in Kat's eyes, and her more curious mind wondered what men would look like to Kat. Lily wasn't a misandrist of course, but she had a natural aversion to them. She wasn't friends with them, and she didn't find them attractive at all. There was no malice for her, but a slight distaste was unavoidable. They weren't girls she could befriend nor were they potential romantic interests. Seeing the difference between her own view of Enuko and Kat's made her realise a little more about herself.
Now Kat of course, could feel the complex emotions rolling off Lily and hadn't initiated another round of flashbacks or started asking her questions. Even though Lily hadn't properly voiced any thoughts Kat did get the vague impressions and was happy to wait. While she did she carefully ran her fingers through Lily's fur, careful to avoid Lily's wings, unsure of if Lily would enjoy those being touched or not. Best to stick with what she knew worked.
Eventually, Lily seemed to realise just how long she'd spent spaced out. [Um… sorry? Did you want to keep showing me things? I didn't mean to get distracted.]
Kat was about to respond but paused for a moment. *I could just say it's fine but… hmm… what about this…*
Kat released her hold on the door that regulated her thoughts and feelings from reaching Lily and allowed her feelings to rush through. Lily was instantly captured by the feeling of complete contentment. Her worries over wasting Kat's time completely melted away. For Lily, it was one thing for her to want to spend time with Kat, it allowed for many feelings to come to the surface with love being one of them. Perhaps not quite proper romantic love, but certainly more than love for a friend. Lily, while able to accept Kat liked having her around and knew they both wanted it to be in a more permanent fashion, didn't quite understand the depth of that.
For Lily, she'd somewhat assumed that Kat would have to have weaker feelings for her. Without sexual attraction, she'd falsely assumed that while Kat did favour her over others, it wasn't to the extent she favoured Kat. She believed Kat to just be more generally helpful and accepting. Feeling the depth of Kat's contentment though, made it hard to keep such silly notions in her mind. She could tell from the feelings she was receiving from Kat that the wasted time was no issue. Kat would happily sit here running her hands through Lily's hair for years before getting bored, something Lily wasn't even sure she could do.
Lily felt some embarrassment over this fact, and decided to distract them both. [Let's go back to the flashbacks]
Kat smiled and did just that.
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Day 6 Morning
Mai hadn't taken an old master form this time, nor any of the others Kat had seen so far. Currently she looked like the protagonist of an old JRPG. She looked like a teenage boy on the cusp of adulthood with longish blue hair and a sword on his back. She wore close fitting leathers with minimal adornments. When Mai spoke though… it was with her default voice which clashed majorly. "Right. Up until now I've been teaching you the basics so that you can teach yourself in the future. Never forget those basics. You need plenty more time to get your forms perfect by yourself but… we don't have forever.
"I know you are going to be using your fans for real soon. While I have some misgivings about that… I can at least trust you not to cause more harm then good, to yourself or others… though your healing certainly helps with the first of those points. Then again, I wouldn't have been able to train you so much without it so perhaps that is a moot point.
"For the rest of our time together will be fighting you. Each day will be a different fighter. First up will be a novice swordsman. They are decidedly more dangerous then they might seem at fight and if you want to avoid injuring them overmuch it will take more effort then you might think. To start with you just need to defeat me using your fans in any way you can. Later I will add additional conditions such as taking me in alive, alive and mostly unharmed, or adding in someone for you to defend.
"Now, two more things. First, I don't want you using demonic energy for this. I imagine it will be a crutch if you do, the same way mana can be. The second thing is that I ask you not to worry about causing me undue harm. I'll be simulating someone at the skill level of your current combatant. If you cut off a few arms or legs that's fine. My core will be safe, I have a multitude of ways to ensure that.
"So go nuts. Though be warned, I said I'll be regulating my strength and durability, so while I personally am fine with you taking of an arm or two dozen, a normal person won't be. So use this as a chance to figure out what level of force is appropriate. Now, READY"
As soon as Mai took her 'stance' if it could even be called that, Kat spotted a tonne of openings. The footwork was rather poor and the sword was being held much too low to protect her head in time. Kat dashed forward, fans in hand but closed, and smacked Mai in the head, making use of the opening. She was not prepared for Mai's head to explode, blue goop going everywhere.
Kat jumped back in fright, breath caught in her throat. "Now Kat. That was clearly too much force" said Mai, not even bothering to reform her head. "Let this be a lesson to you about just how weak some people can be. You might have been using your demonic energy but you hit VERY hard. Granted this is a bit of an exaggeration, you wouldn't have taken a real boy's head off, but you struck the temple perfectly. It would definitely have killed him."
*Oops. I didn't use my film trick to spread out the blow… and… shit maybe I do need this more than I thought. What would I have done if I'd gone up against someone who just looked impressive.*
Kat gained a new appreciation for her training in that moment, and renewed her determination to take it seriously. The rest of Day 6 was spent learning to regulate her strength. It was surprisingly difficult without using her demonic energy and found that for someone of her strength, kill and overkill, or rather defeat and death, were separated by a very thing line.. Even if healing magic could certainly help in these situations Kat had already been in a few situations where it wasn't.